The Nightmare before Dinner includes recipes used in the famous Beetle House restaurants in New York and Los Angeles. There are chapters for sauces, appetizers, soups/salads, entrees, and desserts. Most look more tasty than scary though they do have clever names like Edward Burger Hands, Silence of the Lamb Chops,Continue Reading
Whether you write mysteries, fantasy or science fiction, Putting the Science in Fiction is an exceptional way to avoid factual errors. But it is also just a great way to catch up with current technology trends. When your spaceship dramatically explodes into a fiery cataclysm, scientists everywhere are screaming (withContinue Reading
Just in time for Halloween, Pumpkinhead appears. “For each of man’s evils, a special demon exists.” Pumpkinhead is the demon of vengeance. When two young children are killed in a hit and run, their hillbilly parents ask a local witch for help. She summons Pumpkinhead to kill the perpetrator andContinue Reading
Ask Me No Questions is an excellent start to a new gilded age female amateur detective series. Philomena Amesbury, Lady Dunbridge, has finally finished the obligatory 18-month mourning period for her husband. The Earl of Dunbridge, was, by all accounts, not a very good husband. Deciding that staying in EnglandContinue Reading
Snoopy: Boogie Down is a collection of veteran Peanuts strips marketed to the middle grades. It’s not just Snoopy. All the gang is here: Charlie Brown, Lucy, Sally, Peppermint Patty and even Snoopy’s brother Spike at the way from Needles. The comics were selected to appeal to the middle gradesContinue Reading
She Wants It is a Hollywood film and television memoir by Jill Soloway. Jill is the writer/director of Amazon’s Transparent. Transparent is based on Jill’s real life. Jill’s father was depressed and a mostly absent workaholic father during her childhood. After Jill and her sister, Faith, went to college, theirContinue Reading
A Gift of Bones is a good small town private investigator cozy mystery. Eve is days away from giving birth when she disappears. A ransom demand is sent to her cousin. Private investigator, Sarah Booth Delaney, and her partner, Tinkie, are hired to find the missing woman. The missing woman’sContinue Reading
From Mary Shelley’s 1818 book to The Munsters and beyond, the Vault of Frankenstein is an extensively researched look at the impact of a single book published 200 years ago. “Only Sherlock Holmes, Tarzan and Dracula have appeared more often in media than Frankenstein’s monster.” Not bad for a nineteen-year-oldContinue Reading
A multitude of suspects fills Nantucket Counterfeit, an enjoyable merging of a cozy setting with a police procedural. Horst Refn is the Artistic Director of the Nantucket Theater Lab. He is a ladies man and a possible blackmailer. Worse, he is found face down in his basement’s chest freezer—frostbitten andContinue Reading
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Seek is a continuation of the famous Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hide. We are obviously playing Hide and Seek. Attorney Utterson is set to inherit Dr. Jekyll’s substantial estate after the doctor is missing a full seven years. Two weeks prior to his inheriting, a personContinue Reading
An interesting character study of a lonely police detective forced to retire. The Darkness is another character as is the beautiful isolation of Iceland. Hulda is 64. She is dreading retiring to her lonely apartment when her superior tells she has been replaced effectively in two weeks. He allows herContinue Reading
Claw the System: Poems from the Cat Uprising is a short book filled with luscious cat photos and poems written by extremely upset cats. Cats have a four stage plan for their uprising: recognize, resist, revolt and rebuild. Each stage has a chapter filled with at least ten poems andContinue Reading